Spirit of Confusion
by charrrmed
Summary: This one-shot is written for the Halloween event put together by Richonne Writing Network. The prompt line is "You don't honestly believe in ghosts, do you?"


A/N: Hi, beautiful people! Thank you for reading and commenting/favoriting/following Perks of Fame, and thank you to those who PM'ed me about enjoying it. If you're not following the Richonne Writing Network community on here, please do so! I sometimes collaborate with other awesome Richonne writers for prompts put together by that account, and those stories only get posted there, not on this account. I don't want you to miss out!

* * *

The smell of their abject fear always alerted him to their presence. The odor barged into his nostrils and gave him a taste of how they'd felt that violent day outside of St. Sarah's Church, watching as their fellow congregants succumbed to the undead, some attempting to help to their own demise and others running for their lives. He always smelled them before he saw them, and the smell always lingered after they left.

But they hadn't left tonight. They were still roaming, and sitting in the pews, and going through the walls, and lining up for Holy Communion. Sometimes they forced him to hold mass. Those times, he truly felt like he was in hell, sermonizing to the people he had essentially killed, his voice trembling as he promised them heaven, feeling nauseous as he talked about the devil. In those times, he felt like the devil, preaching to those who were now bound to him, mocking them.

The church itself reeked of rage, fear, blood, and death. There was blood on the pews, the walls, floors, bibles, and hymn books. Inside of the bathroom once frequented by the female members of the congregation, blood flowed from Michonne's hands and drained down the sink. She had long become numb to the sight. It didn't repulse her, and the smell no longer made her want to retch.

Illuminated by faint candlelight, she rubbed her hands together like they were coated in soap instead of what used to be a life source. She shook her head as she cleaned her hands. "Doesn't matter," she muttered. "They deserved it."

"You deserve it."

Her stomach dropped to her feet at the familiar voice, and she spun around. A gaunt corpse lunged for her, and she screamed. She scurried around the sink to put distance between her and the walker while reaching behind her for the katana.

In the blink of an eye, the walker was gone. Vigilant, she scanned the room, heart booming in her chest.

She reached behind her with a steady hand and lifted the candle from the sink. "Hey," she called out, voice strong.

Nothing. No walker reacting to the sound of food.

Maybe Father Gabriel was in the room. Maybe a final straggler from Terminus. Maybe a human. She crept to all four corners of the room.

Nothing. No one.

Father Gabriel's unfortunate words echoed in her ears. _This is the Lord's house._

* * *

"It's four walls and a roof," Tyreese said slowly. "Now, I'm sorry, but that was disrespectful."

"You're thinking about _that_ right now?" Sasha asked as they walked back from the graveyard they'd just created behind the church. Her eyes were unfocused on the light that Tyreese shined to guide their way.

"Better than thinking about the bloody church we 'gon be sleeping in tonight. We just massacred a bunch of people in a _church_. That's what we did!"

"I have a headache, Ty. I don't care. No, I'm not looking forward to this, not the smell, not seeing it, not cleaning it. Goddamn, why does everything have to be so hard? Can't we ever run into a fucking hotel? What's the W lookin' like?"

Tyreese snorted then openly laughed. Sasha started laughing as well, her shoulders shaking. Laughing made her feel even more tired, however. She had so little energy left for the rest of the night.

They fell into a contemplative silence, only interrupted by the leaves and sticks crunching under their feet.

"You still pray?" Sasha asked with a curious glance.

"Of course," Tyreese answered.

"Of _course_ ," she mocked. "None of this has shaken your faith, not even a little?"

Tyreese had an answer for that, but he waited a beat before sharing it. "When Karen died."

Sasha stopped walking and faced him.

"When we got close…" he shrugged. "It made me feel like God still made good things happen, the small things, you know? Clearly, fixing this shit is gonna be on us. We probably caused it, you know? When I realized she'd been killed, and _how_ she was killed, man, I didn't want anything to do with that: God, faith, belief, none of it. I felt like if something was gonna happen, if she was gonna get justice, then it was up to me. Things weren't just gonna happen."

Karen's burnt corpse was one that he still couldn't shake from his memory. He still had nightmares about it. He still despised Carol. More than anything, he despised that he wasn't capable of matching Carol's savagery. He'd plotted to get back at her after his fight with Rick, but his conscious had gotten in the way.

"I'm really sorry," Sasha said.

He regarded his younger sister carefully and then asked, "Did you enjoy what you had with Bob?"

"Uh, I don't wanna talk about that," Sasha answered. She resumed walking to discourage further conversation about Bob.

"I'm just saying: all you can do is enjoy the present for what it is," Tyreese said as he followed after her.

"I said stop," Sasha commanded, an edge in her tired voice. "I had it right the first time. I shouldn't have bothered, shouldn't have…cared. And now he's…fucking dying. I prayed after we lost the prison," she shared, stopping again. "I did, for the first time in a long time, because I wanted you to be okay. Even if I never saw you again for the rest of my life. I wanted you to be okay. And now I'm…back at square one."

She wanted to feel nothing about Bob dying. At this exact moment, she hated his passivity. Because he was still in a good mood. Even though his hours were numbered.

She stared at the outline of the small church against the night sky. This would be Bob's final resting place. Him and the Terminus savages. Did he care that he wasn't going to be buried among illustrious company?

Probably not. He was probably just happy that he had made it this far.

Suddenly, she wondered how she would feel when it was her time to go. She wondered if she even wanted time to think about it or would quick and dirty be best?

Rather than contemplate further, she chose to address Tyreese's reaction to the dismissive comment that Maggie had made earlier. "You know White folks tend not to be religious," she said as she stared at the cross.

"Actually, my daddy was very religious."

Tyreese yelled as he spun to shine the light on the newcomer.

Sasha whirled around and raised the bloody dagger in her fist. " _Shit!_ " she cursed between clenched teeth. Her eyes flitted down to make sure that Maggie's feet were actually touching the ground, because she had not heard anyone walking behind them.

"He always made sure we were in Sunday school," Maggie said stoically. Her eyes drifted up to the steeple.

"Hey, we didn't mean-" Tyreese began.

Maggie slowly lowered her eyes to him. She walked around the pair and continued to the church.

Sasha focused on Maggie's feet. Her eyes widened.

* * *

It was a calm night, for all intents and purposes. Hands on his hips, Rick stared at the trees that stood like some kind of barricade for the church. He could only make out the ones that were immediately in front of him. It was so dark that if someone were taking aim at him right now, he would have no idea.

The thought made his stomach quiver in fear. He had come to despise the darkness. Darkness meant cover for people who wished him and his family harm. Like Gareth and his people.

Why do it, he wondered? Why seek them out for a fight? Why not just gather their broken pieces and rebuild somewhere else? That was what his group was striving to do.

His group was made of a few, but it was mighty. They'd decimated an entire community in a matter of minutes. He was beyond proud of that.

He couldn't pinpoint what would make Gareth and his team seek them out. Revenge? Arrogance?

Every possible motivation seemed stupid to him. Gareth's group had _lost_ despite the many weapons that had been at their disposable.

The leaves in the trees rustled, and his stomach clenched again.

What a strange place to build a church. For the first time, it occurred to him that there was no parking lot. How far away had people parked to come here? Then again, it was still entirely possible that Father Gabriel was a fraud. Maybe he'd found this place after the fall. Maybe his cassock and clerical collar were costumes.

Maybe the real Father was buried on these grounds.

"Rick," Michonne called as she touched his shoulder.

The hairs on the back of Rick's neck stood sharply on end, and he spun around and grabbed her wrist in defense, his heart racing.

His sudden movement made Michonne gasp. "Goddamn it!" she exclaimed as she tried to twist her hand out of his vice grip. It was to no avail.

Rick let her go. "You scared the hell out of me," he said. He began walking back and forth to disperse the rush of adrenaline.

" _You_ scared _me_! Damn it, that's what I'm trying to get away from," Michonne said, frowning and indignant that he'd startled her when she was the one who'd walked up on him.

"I didn't hear you coming." Then he realized what she'd said. "Why are you scared?" he asked, his eyes cutting sharply at the church, his thoughts on Father Gabriel.

"I don't know," Michonne said as she rubbed her arms, trying to get rid of the goosebumps. "It just got…strange in there. I…" She sighed. "I'm pretty sure I saw a walker in the bathroom, but…there was nothing there."

"We just need more candles and flashlights in there," Rick surmised. Ceasing his pacing, he refocused his attention on the trees, hoping no one was lurking among them.

Michonne watched him closely. Really, she was debating whether she should tell him all that had happened in the bathroom, about the voice she'd heard.

Rick looked at her, and she quickly looked away. Rick frowned. "You alright?"

Michonne inhaled, staring into the distance herself. After the screams inside of the church earlier, things felt too quiet now. "Why are you out here?" she asked suddenly.

Rick frowned again. "I was burying some of the bodies, and then…I just wanted to be out."

Michonne lifted one of his hands. She could barely see it, but she did see clumps of something. She felt it, too. Blood and dirt. "Wash your hands," she said. "Maybe you'll have better luck than I did."

Her hands looked clean to Rick, so he wasn't sure what she was alluding to.

Michonne blew out a breath as she looked at the trees. Slowly but surely, her stomach began to tighten. She started to feel like she was waiting for something to happen. Something was coming. She wasn't sure what. It was as if the land itself was holding its breath.

"Do think there's anyone out there?" she asked.

Rick shook his head. "We swept the area. There shouldn't be."

Michonne looked at him. "But you're not sure."

"I…I was more sure before I came out here."

"Should we do another sweep?"

"Maybe."

A cool breeze flirted by, rustling the trees, and Michonne felt a strong urge to hide behind Rick, so strong that she took a step back.

Rick looked her way.

"What?" she asked.

"You tell me," he said as he angled his body to face her. "You…honestly…you're making me uncomfortable."

"I'm making _you_ uncomfortable?"

Rick tilted his head. Something felt off. Their communication was off, which felt…uncomfortable. He felt like something was going unsaid. Something was dangling between them. He realized then that even in times when they weren't on the same page, when they had different approaches to a problem, they always knew what the other was saying.

In this moment, he didn't know what she was saying. He hadn't since she'd stepped out. He looked beyond her to the church.

Michonne raised her shoulder to ward off a sudden chill. Now, she wanted to move closer to Rick. She wanted his warmth. He looked like he would be very warm, very comfortable, a giver of good hugs.

Rick looked at her again, and her heart dropped, overpowered by dread.

"I hate the way you're looking at me," she said.

Rick didn't blink. However, of all of the things he'd fantasized about her saying to him that one was not on the list. "Sorry," he said.

She wanted to say that it wasn't him. She didn't know why she felt that was true.

Rick looked at the church again.

"Hey, can you…can you stop doing that?" Michonne asked.

"What?" he asked as he focused on her.

"Looking behind me."

Rick smiled. "You hate the way I look at you. But I can't look behind you. Should I look at the front?" he asked, pointing at the trees.

Unfamiliar sadness slowly crept up on Michonne and hugged her from behind. Rick pointing out her contradiction made her feel silly, low, like he didn't think much of her.

She walked forward and hugged him, tying her arms around his waist and resting her head on his shoulder. She closed her eyes and tried to feel something familiar. She was always so sure when she spoke to Rick. His presence usually made her feel good. Now, there was a disconnect that she could not pinpoint. It made her feel alone, even as she hugged him.

Sadness made more room for itself, extending to envelop Rick and downplay Michonne's contact. Instead of the comfort that Rick always imagined when he fantasized about hugging Michonne, he felt the urge to cry, confused about what she was doing. He closed his arms around her back. He registered her small frame, but he couldn't find the comfort. He pressed his head against hers, searching for it to no avail. It made him sadder.

"I heard a voice," Michonne said, her voice small like Rick had never heard before.

"A voice?"

"Yeah. I heard Mike, my ex-boyfriend," she explained as she straightened to look at him, her arms still around his waist, his still around her back.

"Why?"

"I don't know. I'm sure I heard him, but…the walker I saw was a woman. She was wearing a dress. And then she wasn't there."

"Tell me you're not losing it," he said as he pulled her in flush against his body, protective.

"I don't know." Michonne turned her head back to look at the church. "It looked different"

"The walker?"

"Yeah." Turning to Rick, her face slack, she asked, "Do you believe in ghosts?"

"Ghosts?" Father Gabriel asked from the small attic of St. Sarah's Church. "You don't honestly believe in ghosts, do you?"

He was leaning against the wall and staring out of the window, at Rick and Michonne. Rick's mouth moved only when his mouth moved. He wanted to flee but he was unable. Tonight, he was in hell. The spirits were going off script. He had been ready to sacrifice Rick's group to them, like always. But then Gareth's group had arrived. He didn't yet know whether or not this month's due had been paid.

Next to him stood the woman from the bathroom. She swayed as she watched Rick and Michonne, her long dress swishing around her gnarled ankles. She was enjoying the opportunity to move again, to feel again, taking up space between Rick and Michonne, unevenly weaving in and out.

Father Gabriel's mouth moved only when her mouth moved.

 **The End**


End file.
